US forces were turning up the heat on Osama bin Laden and Taliban leaders in Afghanistan Thursday after scoring a direct hit on what was believed to be a gathering of militia officials near Kandahar.
As the US troop buildup continued with Marines landing in the south and regular army Mountain Division forces in the north, US warplanes were hunting down the Taliban hierarchy and bin Laden loyalists.
A report in a US daily said several top members of the al-Qaeda terrorist network had been captured by Northern Alliance forces.
The Los Angeles Times, quoting US intelligence officials, said Thursday that one of the detainees was Ahmed Omar Abdel-Rahman, the son of Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, the blind Muslim cleric convicted in 1995 in a foiled plot to bomb several landmarks in New York and whose followers were convicted in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.
The 36-year-old Rahman and as many as a dozen al-Qaeda operatives could be flown to the Pacific region to be held at a US military facility, perhaps in Guam or Wake Island, the report added.
Rahman was described as an important figure in charge of recruiting for terror suspect bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, blamed for carrying out the September 11 atrocities and other attacks against US interests.
"This is a significant catch," an unidentified senior US administration official told the daily. "He is a known terrorist, a member of the top al-Qaeda hierarchy."
Rear Admiral John Stufflebeem, the deputy director of operations of the Joint Staff, said US strategy had shifted and the focus of the campaign was the leadership of al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
"If we break the leadership of the Taliban or break the leadership of al-Qaeda there is reduced emphasis or reduced motivation for troops to stay loyal to the cause and continue to fight," he said.
"There are always going to be pockets who are going to fight to the end in any campaign. But getting the key leadership and breaking the chain of command is going to render much of that ineffective."
Pentagon officials said up to 800 US Marines and small special forces teams near the Taliban's southern stronghold of Kandahar were trying to choke off the Taliban and al-Qaeda leadership and cut their escape routes.
Once isolated, they would be easier to target with air strikes or ground operations, while their ability to act and communicate with their forces would be severely limited.
"We know that there are elements of the leadership that are trying to reach their seniors for guidance," Stufflebeem said. "We know that there is guidance that is still coming down from the senior leaders."
A B-1 bomber inflicted heavy damage Tuesday to a compound southeast of Kandahar where senior leaders of al-Qaeda and the Taliban were believed to be gathered, Pentagon officials said.
Stufflebeem showed video tape taken from an F-16 fighter jet of the bombs falling and blasts ripping through the compound, but there was no indication that Mullah Omar Mohammad, the Taliban's supreme leader, was there.
"We were confident that there were Taliban leadership," he said. "I think we're always going to be hopeful that the senior leadership is going to be at one of these locations. We wouldn't assume necessarily that Omar was there or would be there."
Senior Taliban official Abdul Salam Zaeef denied the claim, telling the Afghan Islamic Press news agency Wednesday that the bombing had hit the house of a local official.
"There is no Taliban or al-Qaeda center," said Zaeef, the ambassador to Pakistan before Islamabad closed down his embassy. "Neither Mullah Omar nor any Taliban official was there."
The Washington Post on Thursday reported that Taliban emergency rescue personnel were seen digging urgently through the debris, according to Pentagon officials.
"This kind of rapid response has not been characteristic of the Taliban reaction to other strikes and suggests to us that some important people had been inside," one official told the daily.
US Marines continued to arrive at a desert airstrip south of Kandahar on Wednesday, raising the size of the force there to between 750 and 800.
The largest deployment of US ground forces since the start of the war on October 7, it has seen little action except for an air attack on an armored column near the air strip on Monday.
Pentagon officials have said the Marines' presence -- backed by AH-1W Cobra helicopter gunships -- will be used to block escape routes out of Kandahar to Pakistan, Iran or Kabul.
About 20 US troops from the 10th Mountain Division had also arrived at the airport in Mazar-i-Sharif to provide security, a senior defense official said, although the Washington Post said the figure was closer to 100.
The CIA confirmed the first US combat death in Afghanistan, saying the body of Johnny Michael Spann, a 32-year-old CIA officer, was recovered from a prison fortress at Mazar-i-Sharif where Taliban prisoners staged a bloody revolt on Sunday – Kabul (AFP)
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
